Turkish officials have begun the process of flooding a 12,000-year-old town to make way for a dam project to power the region.
Hasankeyf, possibly one the of the oldest sites of human settlement, will start to become an artificial lake as water journeys down the Tigris river.
Authorities on the Ilısu hydroelectric dam project have started to fill the dam with water, at another stage of the river, 50 miles away. The town is in the south-east of the country in an area often referred to as Turkish Kurdistan due to the large Kurdish population.
It once housed a 12th Century bridge, a 15th Century pillar tomb, two dilapidated mosques and hundreds of natural mountain caves and was home to thousands of residents. The caves in the ancient city have survived as homes since the Neolithic era with some locals still using them as dwellings today. Marks have been left on the town by all civillisations that ruled the region, including the Mesopotamians, Romans and Ottomans.
Most of the artefacts, including a tomb, were moved last month to a location called New Hasankeyf and the townspeople are expected to follow by mid-October.
The decision, confirmed by the regional governor, Hulusi Sahin, at a meeting on Saturday, ignores decades' long resistance from campaigners and residents.
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He said the site will be cordoned off on 8 October, leaving residents just over a month to relocate before the flooding starts.
'Entry and exit will not be allowed,' Sahin said.
'Time is running out, we all have our duties.'
The town will be submerged as part of the Ilisu Dam project which, according to Turkey's Foreign Ministry, will provide power to the region and have several economic and environmental benefits.
The dam was first dreamt up as a solution to the area's need for power and to irrigate the surrounding agricultural land in the 1950s but failed to gain traction until 2006.
The dam and accompanying power plant will be capable of producing the same amount of electricity as a small nuclear plant.
Though the government has built a new town with 710 houses for those displaced, residents aren't happy about the forced relocation.
Local resident, Firat Argun, told CBSNews that his family has lived in the area for 300 years.
'We were living with hope but we lost that now. They gave us three to five months,' he said.
'I need to start all over again. I feel like I have just arrived in this world. I don't know if it is going to be good or bad.'
The new town will house the old artifacts at a museum and hopes to draw archaeology enthusiasts there.
The dam plans have brought together 86 local and national organisations under the banner of the Initiative to Keep Hasankeyf Alive but with the governor's recent comments, it appears their solidarity may have been in vein.
Many countries removed their support for the Ilisu Dam, including the UK back in 2001 and in 2008, numerous European firms withdrew their funding from the controversial project.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
